No. 11. 



Masnesian Lime. 



33D 



For tl;e Farmers' Cabinet. 



Magnesian Lime. 



Mr. Editor, — Having always been ready 

 to respond, in the main, to your agricultural 

 views, I noticed in the last (Cabinet, a select- 

 ed article from tlie "General Report of Scot- 

 land," on the subject of magnesian lime; and 

 believing that you, as conductor of the Cabi- 

 net, endorsed those opinions before they were 

 suffered to appear in its columns, I cannot 

 forbear joining issue.* When we observe 

 correspondents firing at each otlier, on " moot- 

 ed points," there is no great interest in agri- 

 culture jeopardized, because their several no- 

 tions are " passed for their worth." Not so 

 with the conductor; he is valued in the light 

 of a teacher; his views with the reader al- 

 ways have greater weiglit, either for good or 

 evil. 



Tlie article in question, I now wish to take 

 i:p; and contend, that if such opinion should 

 become disseminated and prevail among the 

 inexperienced farmers, it would arrest the 

 march of improvement: yes, throw cold water 

 on that " spirit for liming," which has done 

 more in Pennsylvania to renovate poor primi- 

 tive soils, and even improve those in forma- 

 tion of a transition and secondary character, 

 to the very acme of fertility, than all other 

 means combined. The fact and truth of the 

 matter is, tlie very richest and most valuable 

 land in Pennsylvania, particularly in Lan- 

 caster and Chester counties, including the 

 great valley of the latter, the very finest 

 farms of these counties, overlay the magne- 

 eian limestone; and what is more conclusive, 

 the most striking fertilizing and durable ef- 

 fects ever produced by the use of lime here 

 in this county and in Chester, particularly 

 the southwestern part, including Upper and 

 Lower Oxford, East and West Nottingham 

 townships, have been from magnoaan lime. 

 Cecil county, Maryland, /oo, will not be want- 

 ing in her testimony in favour of the magne- 

 sian lime, which has changed some of her 

 sterile " barrens" into productive farms, at a 

 cost of from twenty-five to thirty cents per 



* We have taken a different view of the proper pro- 

 \-i;ico of an agricultural journal. The article at page 

 270, on the subject of Magnesian Lime, was intro- 

 duce;! for the purpose of calling up such writers as Mr. 

 Kinzer, whose excellent and well-written article will, 

 it is hoped, bring forth communications from those of 

 our friends who, without going back to the time of Dr. 

 Tennant or Dr. Davy, conceive tliey have had experi- 

 ence, of the fact, that magnesian lime has been injuri- 

 ous to their land, rather than otherwise. Truth will 

 bear investigation; the question has not yet been de- 

 cided. The pages of the Cabinet are offered for record- 

 ing the views of those on both sides. Will they be 

 pleased to make use of them 7— E0. 



bushel — ample te.'.timony. For Lancaster 

 county and the southwest of Chester county, 

 also of Cecil county, Maryland, 1 speak ad- 

 visedly and understandingly. If my informa- 

 tion in regard to the great valley of Chester 

 be not authentic, some intelligent writer hail- 

 ing from the "Home of Agriculture," will 

 put me right. But in this stage of the issue, 

 let us come and rea.?on together. After de- 

 scribing the real practical effects produced so 

 extensively by correctly analyzed magnesian 

 lime, under our own eyes, observation and 

 experience, let us examine first into the ori- 

 gin of the notion, that magnesian lime is pre- 

 judicial to vegetation, and then follow with 

 an array of such scientific testimony, which, 

 in addition to the existing state of experi- 

 ence, as above, in real practice, ought, I 

 think, to explode the absurdity. 



1st. The origin of the prejudice, it appears, 

 dates from an experiment made by Smithson 

 Tennant, a physician of Yorkshire, in Eng- 

 land, forty-one years ago, (nearly half a cen- 

 tury,) who was a chemist. It would seem 

 that Dr. Tennant is quoted, and he only, up 

 to this day, to father the numerous offspring 

 of this unfounded prejudice. He, to test the 

 matter, sowed different seeds in a bed of cal- 

 cined magnesia, mixed with some soil: he 

 found they vegetated in an imperfect man- 

 ner, and the plants were unhealthy ; he then 

 disingenuously inferred, that magnesian lime 

 is injurious. Had the Doctor sowed his seed 

 among soil too highly charged with ashes, 

 pure lime, or liquid manure, we presume the 

 result would have been the same. Although 

 Sir Humphry Davy speaks respectfully of 

 both the experimenter and the experiment, 

 yet his own experience proved that his bar- 

 ley grew belter on soil with some magnesia, 

 than it did on the same soil without magne- 

 sia. " Amongst some specimens of lime- 

 stone," ho says, " which Lord Somerville put 

 into my hands, two, marked as peculiarly 

 good for agricultural purposes, proved to be 

 magnesian limestones." Ure, in his valuable 

 work on the arts, manufactures, and mines, 

 uses this language: "Great quantities of 

 magnesian lime ate annually brought from 

 Sunderland to Scotland by the Fifeshire farm- 

 ers, and employed very beneficially by them 

 as a fertilizing manure in preference to any 

 other kind of lime. It has been unjustly and 

 unfairly denounced by Mr. Tennant, and 

 questioned by Sir H. Davy as a sterilizer. 



Bakewell's Geology, of which in point of 

 merit and value, it is sufficient only to say, 

 that it has undergone an American edition 

 by Professor Silliman, of New Haven. We 

 quote page 390, as follows : " The magnesian 

 lime acts more powerfully in destroying un- 

 decomposed vegetable matter, than common 

 lime, and its effects on land are more dura- 



